1.

2.Mercyful Fate - Melissa

3.Anthrax - Spreading The Disease

4.Joe Satriani - Flying In A Blue Dream

5.King Diamond - The Eye

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A little list series where I list my top 20 favorite metal albums every year starting from the year I was born in.

2015 was a great one, I honestly forgot how good that year was for metal, black metal had a strong showing and Symphonic was not that far behind, Progressive and gothic had great releases and the great return of Iron Maiden.

1.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

2.Ghost - Meliora

3.Mgła - Exercises In Futility

4.Draconian - Sovran

5.Swallow The Sun - Songs From The North I, II & III

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1.Kauan - Sorni Nai

2.Wilderun - Sleep At The Edge Of The Earth

3.Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase.

4.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

5.Dødheimsgard - A Umbra Omega

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2000-2004 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5844
2005-2009 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5838
2010-2014 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5828

I sure do love this site and it's rating system, it makes finding great music so easy and, even more importantly, when an album is overlooked for a while but starts getting a buzz a few months later, boom, there it appears in the top 20.

All that being said, I still wish there was some way to get a weighted ranking that not only takes the rating of the album into account, but also the number of votes that were cast. For example, an album with a rating of 8.8 and 1000 votes would rank higher than an album with a rating of 8.9 and 20 votes. So, I scraped all the albums on the site with at least 1 vote into a database. Then, taking a leaf out of IMDb's book, I used Bayesian estimation (like the IMDb's Top 250) to calculate a weighted rating for each album based on its Metal Storm rating and the number of votes it had received.

The formula for calculating the Top 100 Albums gives a true Bayesian estimate:
Bayes rating (BR) = ( C × m + R × N ) ÷ ( m + N ) where:
C = average expected rating given...
m = minimum number of votes
R = average rating for the album = (Metal Storm rating)
N = number of votes for the album = (votes)

The way the Bayesian estimator works is that all albums in the database are given and additional m fake votes with an average rating of C, irrespective of how many true votes it already has. Then a new weighted rating is calculated...
If the album has no true votes ( N = 0 ), then BR = ( C × m + R × 0 ) ÷ ( m + 0) = C × m ÷ m = C (the average expected rating).
If the album has a number of true votes equal to the minimum ( N = m ), then BR = ( C × m + R × m ) ÷ ( m + m ) = ( C + R ) × m ÷ 2m = ( C + R ) ÷ 2 (halfway between the two ratings).
If the album has a very large number of true votes ( N >> m ), then BR = ( C × m + R × N ) ÷ ( m + N ) ≈ R × N ÷ N = R (the Metal Storm rating).
This means that the Bayes rating will never equal the Metal Storm rating but will approach it as the true votes grows arbitrarily large.

Now that the maths bit is out of the way, here was my methodology:
Only Studio and EP album types, from the years 2015 to 2019, with at least 1 vote, were included.
The average expected rating (C) was determined by averaging all the Metal Storm ratings from 2015-2019.
The minimum number of votes (m) was determined by calculating the 75th percentile of the votes, rounded to the nearest 10.
I also decided that if an album's Bayes rating was within 0.005 of #100, it would be included too; hence the +2.

C for 2015-2019 = 7.422
m = 20

Number of albums from each year in the list:
2015 - 31
2016 - 24
2017 - 18
2018 - 12
2019 - 17

Ratings are accurate as of 30/10/2023

1.Mgła - Exercises In Futility

2.Insomnium - Winter's Gate

3.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

4.Vektor - Terminal Redux

5.Trees Of Eternity - Hour Of The Nightingale

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1.Symphony X - Underworld

2.Pressure Points - False Lights

3.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

4.Phantasma (NED) - The Deviant Hearts

5.Draconian - Sovran

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1.Draconian - Sovran

2.Swallow The Sun - Songs From The North I, II & III

3.Paradise Lost - The Plague Within

4.Moonspell - Extinct

5.My Dying Bride - Feel The Misery

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1.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

2.Moonspell - Extinct

3.Swallow The Sun - Songs From The North I, II & III

4.Angra - Secret Garden

5.The Gentle Storm - The Diary

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1.Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase.

2.Senegal Grindcore Mafia - Hay Daño En Casa

3.Leviathan - Scar Sighted

4.Ahab - The Boats Of The Glen Carrig

5.A Forest Of Stars - Beware The Sword You Cannot See

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This is my top albums for 2015 So far ..

1.Enshine - Singularity

2.Draconian - Sovran

3.Moonspell - Extinct

4.Exgenesis - Aphotic Veil

5.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

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A list of my favorite 2015 albums. Also with my favorite tracks.

1.A Forest Of Stars - Beware The Sword You Cannot See

2.Shape Of Despair - Monotony Fields

3.Cattle Decapitation - The Anthropocene Extinction

4.Gloryhammer - Space 1992: Rise Of The Chaos Wizards

5.Misþyrming - Söngvar Elds Og Óreiðu

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No particular order.

1.Dimmu Borgir - Enthrone Darkness Triumphant

2.Nile - Annihilation Of The Wicked

3.Summoning - Dol Guldur

4.Bloodbath - The Fathomless Mastery

5.Skyclad - Irrational Anthems

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2015 was the edge, the cliff, the abyss looking back at us... and we jumped... oh yes we did...

Top 50 of my 8+ ratings

Enjoy! or not I don't really care

Album count: 155
Average rating: 7.15

1.Shape Of Despair - Monotony Fields

2.Arcturus - Arcturian

3.Panopticon - Autumn Eternal

4.Kauan - Sorni Nai

5.Swallow The Sun - Songs From The North I, II & III

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1.Swallow The Sun - Songs From The North I, II & III

2.Evoken - Hypnagogia

3.Woods Of Ypres - Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light

4.Grand Magus - The Hunt

5.Candlemass - Psalms For The Dead

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1.Shylmagoghnar - Transience

2.Alcest - Spiritual Instinct

3.Wilderun - Veil Of Imagination

4.Ángeles Del Infierno - Si Tú No Estás Aquí

5.Ángeles Del Infierno - Al Otro Lado Del Silencio

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This is a collection of duets with male and female singers. Listed in play order and not best order. I'm sure there are more that I have overlooked.

1.Fleshgod Apocalypse - Labyrinth

2.Therion - Lemuria

3.Sonata Arctica - The Days Of Grays

4.Imperanon - Stained

5.Draconian - Sovran

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